Women in Denmark make about 10% less than men for the same work [1]. Granted, that's better than the US, where it's more like 75¢ on the dollar, but I'd hardly call that equality.

I don't know enough about Denmark to know whether gender discrimination persists in technical fields, but my guess is that women make up far less than half of the technical workforce (that's the case for most of Europe [2]).

And unless you will find a way for a male become pregnant that will never change. For better or worse there are differences between males and females and from a pure economical point of view that results in different risks in regards to employers.

How exactly does that however play into sexual harassment on conferences?

There's no inherent reason that pregnancy should result in women spending less time at work than men, and Danish parental leave laws mean that it's possible for a father to spend more time on 100% paid leave than a mother. The risk to employers is a consequence of local laws and social norms, not an absolute.

The relevance? There's this horrible idea that sexism doesn't exist in enlightened liberal societies with aggressive equality laws, and so any attempts to fix harassment should be done by just passing laws. In reality it's a social issue, and just like any social issue it doesn't get fixed through laws alone. Social attitudes need to change, and part of that is making it clear what the acceptable social attitudes at community events are.

> There's no inherent reason that pregnancy should result in women spending less time at work than men, and Danish parental leave laws mean that it's possible for a father to spend more time on 100% paid leave than a mother. The risk to employers is a consequence of local laws and social norms, not an absolute.

It's not the time that matters, it's the timing. You can't legally (and you should not) force a pregnant woman to come to work.

Not all gender inequality is sexism. There are physical and psychological differences between our genders. Case in point: possibility of dichromacy among males versus potential tetrachromacy among females.

And in Denmark, you have no control over when a father might take paternity leave. This basic economic truth you're asserting is a product of society, not a product of biology.

>Not all gender inequality is sexism.

True, just the vast majority of it. But next time women complain that they're being underpaid, do remind them of the lucrative opportunities that await them in the growing field of "People better able to tell the difference between shades of green". I'm sure that'll make them feel better.

>Women in Denmark make about 10% less than men for the same work [1]. Granted, that's better than the US, where it's more like 75¢ on the dollar, but I'd hardly call that equality.

And whole ranges of employees make less than other ranges of employees. There are lots of women in business that make 20 and 100 times what I make, for example.

Equal pay for men and women does not necessarily translate to equality at the workplace (it's based on a non verified premise that men and women's output and negotiating skills are equal). Have you researched if those women that make 10% less than men:

1) put 10% less to their work (e.g because they prefer investing more in their children than in the whole career rat-race)

2) Are less cut-throat salary negotiators? As an employee myself, I know that employees get what they are able to negotiate, not what they deserve and surely not equal pay.

Equality is equal pay for equal work -- regardless of gender race or creed.

Laws aren't enough to prevent things from happening. The fact that Denmark has equality laws doesn't mean that it's gender-equal, and it certainly doesn't mean that there's no sexual harassment. There are strong social mores against murder. There aren't strong social mores against sexual harassment. Having a code of conduct helps indicate to attendees that whatever their personal beliefs about sexual harassment are, and regardless of what local laws there may be about it, it won't be tolerated.

Event terms and conditions would become nicer if they didn't list the (already illegal) things that will get you expelled from the event but just said "Any criminal act, and especially the removal by police for these acts, will result in immediate expulsion except in the sole judgement of the event staff".

Even if the event wants to say something about it above and beyond that, it frees them up to say "We all know the law on this, but to encourage our ideal atmosphere (which is X) the voluntary by attendance code of conduct will also be ...." without repeating all the mundane bits of the law.